


The Bleeding Moon

by AmaranthTalmage



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: M/M, Mild Gore, Non-Graphic Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-09-29 18:44:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20440745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmaranthTalmage/pseuds/AmaranthTalmage
Summary: Dhampyr and hunter Billy Rocks finds a homeless man in modern day New Orleans that is more than he seems, and the trauma beneath the exterior leads him on a hunt that brings together more men to face a local evil.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CieldelaRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CieldelaRose/gifts).

His vision is as clear in the night as it had been in the daytime. When he can remember being able to see in the sun, or bask in it's warmth. Sometimes, he's prone to melancholic trips back to his past, caught in the loop of faded memories of warmed sand upon his bare feet or brilliant blue skies that matched the waters that licked at Joseon. But Joseon wasn't Joseon anymore, and those beaches had been bathed in blood when the sun went down, leaving him alone to ruminate upon his fate for so many years, enough that it made it simple to push those flashes to the back. He had a task to do, a simple chore for him now after ages of practice, and these Americans made it too easy.

He watched revelers course up and down the streets, enjoying the thriving nightlife of New Orleans. This was a large city that came to life with the streetlights, simmering down only with the threat of dawn. He actually felt welcome here, with it's easy pickings and it's burgeoning nocturnal habits. However, with so many arm in arm, pressed close to each other in laughter and tears and inebriation, singling one off to the side for a quick rendezvous wasn't so simple. But these were the commons, where the numbers were just as many tourist as there were local. It kept the party going.

A few streets over were the areas that tourists tended to stray from. The bars were dingier here, with their streets littered and uncared for and the buildings a little more dilapidated. It was common to see a busted streetlight or even cracks visible in windows between the rusted iron gates that attempted to deter break-ins. Sure, theft might have lost it's luster to the criminal element, but vandalism was always a temptation. The streets smelled like a forgotten urinal, burning his sensitive nose with it's acidic fumes, but he pushed that away, too, pushed until it joined the forgotten memories and wistful dreams. There was work to be done.

He perched upon a run-down three-story brownstone, it might have been beautiful back in it's heyday, but now, it looked like another sad, neglected giant, seeming to slouch in the darkness of broken lights and buzzing neons that tried to advertise whatever wares or services were offered in the trashier district. Perhaps this place would have been as warm and welcoming as the other streets, just blocks away where their music could still be heard ringing in his acute ears, but seedier businesses moving in always seemed to drive values down.

That, and the smell.

He was shocked out of his musings when the door across the street flew open to let a man stumble into the street. Obvious signs of distress fell off the man in waves, his lanky limbs trembling with each erratic breath as he struggled to light the cigarette he had dropped a few times before finally closing lips around the tip. The narrow flame lit up long lashes and delicate cheekbones, full coral lips wrapped around the paper filter. His hands shook as he fought to keep still long enough to light it, and once done, he took a long inhale and threw his head back to release a long plume of smoke into the night. The man's shoulders heaved with gasping breaths as he stumbled into the dark, littered alleyway between the buildings where he hid in the shadows, hid from eyes not sharp enough to watch him fall against the filthy brick wall and slide down to pull his knees to his chest and rest his head upon his them. An easy mark.

He noiselessly dropped to the alleyway opposite the one the other man crouched in and straightened his clothes. If Death would come, let Death look good upon his arrival, he thought. The slacks were easy enough to move in, the long-sleeved henley doing a lovely job of accentuating each well-defined muscle hidden behind the deep crimson cotton shell. His black hair was gathered in a knot at the back of his head, pinned there by a simple silver pin. The leather boots had been worn enough that they cradled his feet and made each step whisper quiet as he approached the man, who seemed to take no notice of his presence as of yet. But then, a man so troubled could be blind and deaf to a dragon's roar, if so lost in his own head.

* * *

The room was stifling. The air was choked by smoke and the smell of booze and cheap sweat. It was quiet, though, in this forgotten bar in the less welcoming streets of New Orleans. The loud mirth and boundless energies writhing just blocks away was a threat. He could hide there, sure, but then, so could the people that hunted him. He was a fugitive and here he was trying to hide in the very city they knew he would return to. But it was familiar ground, comforting, even if the smells and sounds were deafening now. The once-comforting scents of food he'd grown up with were now too strong to endure, and it turned his stomach just contemplating the loss of that one comfort. Sound was an assault on his mind, as well. Everything was too loud, too acute, and it competed with the noises that already stormed his memories and ruined his sleep.

He tried, he tried so hard to put things in order, to make rational sense of what he'd run from. Every time he attempted to do so, the voices would return, haunting screams that echoed in his brain and shuddered down his spine. If his bones didn't hurt, especially everytime the adrenaline spiked, he might have signed this off as some psychosis. Hell, he could relate to a psychosis, that's what had earned him the medical discharge from the Army and bought him a permanent pass to the V.A. hospital. Nightmares that took place in the scorching Hell of a never-ending desert, sands drenched in the blood of his platoon is what lead him to experimental treatments. Experimental treatments lead him here, where he attempted to wash away the antiseptic-washed tiled walls and floors, cuffs on his arms and legs pinning him to the too-thin mattress, too many needles in his arms, blinding lights in his eyes, echoing voices...

A loud clatter and raucous laughter in one of the booths behind him had him sitting up straight with a gasp. Their voices echoed.

_Thirty CCs of diazepam, stat! His adrenaline is spiking, he's responding to stimuli in his sleep. If we can't bring him down, we'll have a situation on our hands. These manacles might not hold him if he turns blindly, he'll be out of our control...._

"...control!" The howling laughter, some obscure joke he didn't bother catching, couldn't catch, eminated from the table the loud clatter had come from. A drunk telling a story to another drunk. Still, it had him aching, had him gasping for breath. He needed fresh air, needed out, the walls were closing in, the smell of antiseptic still stinging his nose.  
The door swung wildly as he crashed into it and out into the dim light of the night. His lungs begged for breath and he drank it down greedily. His head rang with too many sounds, too many memories. His fingers trembled as he fought to pull the pack of cigarettes from his inside his coat pocket and he nearly dropped the cigarette as he pursed it between his lips. The first, rough inhale brought nicotine rushing into his lungs, but he felt no calmer.

_....hit! He's been hit! Robicheaux! Goddamn it, fire the fucking gun! We're pinned down! Bayou-60, we're requesting support! We're taking heavy fire! We need medevac! Sanders and Gorman are hit! Bayou-60! Do you read?_

_...Subject 60 seems to be responding to the treatments and reacting well to stimulation. All signs point to success in test subjects, but we need real world application. Unless we can get Dr Bogue to agree to outside trials, introduction to social testing, we're just left with a bunch of freaks we'll eventually have to euthanize..._

With a whimper, the man darted for the only darkness he could find, the cold comfort of shadows in a filthy alleyway. His back hit the brick wall before he even knew the support would be there and he collapsed against it, willing the echoes to leave him in peace, just a few moments of peace. His stomach lurched, empty except for the cheap bourbon in his gut. Gathering his legs against his chest, he clenched the half-smoked cigarette in one hand and wrapped his arms around his knees, begging the wave of nausea to fade away with a quiet sob.

"Are you alright?"

Was the voice in his head? Those voices never spoke so clearly, so calm, a deep rumble like thunder that seemed to soothe away the shakes. He kept his head upon his knees, trying to remember if he had ever heard it before, for a memory so sharp. But this couldn't be something he'd remembered.

"Are you alright?"

The voice came again, closer, quiet and more insistent. He jerked his head up and realized, with frightened gasp, there was a man crouched close to him, eye level and within reach. He started, dropping the cigarette to the ground as he pressed himself into the building. A cornered animal. How his bones ached now, his teeth itching as he clenched his jaw shut. Wide-eyed, he took in the man that knelt cautiously beside him. Did they send him? He looked rather clean-cut and well kept. The other man eyed him with a wary interest. His nose twitched and he caught the scent of laundry detergent, body wash, the faintest hint of blood, but no warmth, no sweat or personal essence. His lips trembled as he finally pushed out haltingly, "...w-who are y-you? Did they send you?"

The other man's brows knit together as his head canted questioningly. Playing dumb? Trying to act innocent? But he was so tired, tired of running. At this point, was death so bad? He had been trying to kill himself in alcohol anyways, but at least it was his choice. The other man's gaze softened. "No one sent me. Are you in trouble?" he asked nonchalantly, moving slowly to pick up the dropped cigarette between two delicate fingers. He took a drag, then held it back out to him. An offer. A treaty.

Crystal blue eyes, bloodshot from booze, crying, or both, darted from the hand back up to the other man's face before reaching for the offered smoke with trembling fingers that hesitated. Fear had blanched the color from his already light skin, but the man kept his distance. He let the face burn into his memory, another one to the collection. It was an easy distraction that prevented him from answering the question. He took in this lithe, finely tuned body, the long, sinewy arms draped over his knees as he crouched, raven black hair, fine cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. The man before him could have been a hallucination, for all he knew, but it was a beautiful one, one that didn't belong in his usually-cluttered mind. He studied the thin, powerful hands that moved with slow, precise movements to not startle him. Unless the scientists hired outside help, this man couldn't have been sent by them, but he still seemed so dangerous.

The other man seemed to notice his fear and reluctance to answer questions and stood painfully slow. He felt a coldness in his gut and he stifled a whimper. The man would leave, the only friendly presence he'd known in a long time and his sweet, velvet voice would leave and he'd be alone again. However, he jumped when the man offered his hand to help him off the street, a kindly smile stretching his lips.

"Come on. You look like you could use some coffee. My treat."

He looked up into the softened features, then at the hand offered to him. "My daddy used to say, never scoff at the hand offered to you..."

He was shameful of the tremble in his hand as he slid his fingers gingerly into the palm held out for him. The other man's grip tightened for a moment before slowly pulling him to his feet. They were roughly the same height, easy for him to try and read into the endless darkness of the other man's eyes. Easy to lose himself in them and forget, for a moment, the background screams in his head. The adrenaline began to simmer away, becoming vapors that left his body with each breath. The aches receded, leaving him only worn and tired. It was then he found his voice again. "...Goodnight."

The other man's head tilted again, brows creasing in question. Did the man think he was dismissing the offer of coffee? "Come again?" he asked.

He managed a weak smile, forgetting for a moment that his hand was still in the other man's palm. "S'm'name," he mumbled, sheepishly looking down at his feet before peering up beneath pale lashes. "M'name is Goodnight."

The other man huffed what might have been a laugh, what with the twitch of his lips. He stepped back a moment, their hands stretched between them, and shook them slowly. "Well, then. A pleasure to meet you properly, Goodnight," he murmured quietly, the sound seeming to echo in Goodnight's head. "You can call me... Billy."

Billy had only wanted a drink, a warm pulse to hold for a moment before their thuds slowed in measure. He had come upon the frightened man in the alleyway, moments from shaking apart, and saw something too raw that pulled at his memories. He had been that creature before, the shivering and terrified man hoping the shadows would hide him from nightmares, and it spoke volumes to him. The man's scent, Goodnight's scent, was too rich to be entirely mortal, but he couldn't name what it reminded him of other than nighttime among groves of fragrant cypress and cedar. When the terrified man looked up at him, he was struck with those blue skies of his human youth, trapped in the man's gaze. He had looked far too stately to be in this kind of environment; someone trying to escape something, then. When he'd asked if someone had sent him, he realized that Goodnight was on the run. He'd regret offering a hand, regret helping; it's what had put him in the position he was in, in the first place. He forgot his reservations when the hand slipped into his, delicious with warmth that radiated more than any human he'd felt before. Perhaps it was time to play the long con with this one. He'd played this game before, he knew what he was doing.

At least, that's what Billy told himself. He'd offered his hand to many others, welcomed them into his home and bed on occasion, and the morning found the mark a little weaker, even if he felt sated for once. But he still walked a little closer to Goodnight as they made their way to the shabby diner a few blocks over, and the heat that radiated off of the man peaked his curiosity. 

The diner was empty except for a few lone late stragglers bellied up to the counter. They chose a booth far from the door in the corner, and Goodnight was quick to take the seat that had the wall at his back, watching the door nervously. Billy stopped himself from reaching across the table to take the man's hand, a pretense to help calm him. But he wanted to feel those hot fingertips once more curled around his cooler palm, wanted to feel the blood coursing like mad just below calloused skin. Instead he sighed, looking over his shoulder once before settling against the back of his bench seat.

Instead, Billy shushed Goodnight, drawing those eyes back in his direction. "No one's coming for you, Goody. You'll be alright."  
Goodnight's eyes widened, his fingers curling into a fist tight enough to turn his knuckles white as he clenched his eyes shut.

_...no one's coming, Goody! HQ says we're under too much heat!_

Goodnight swallowed loudly as he lowered his chin to his chest, a powerful tremor rolling through him. He pulled his shoulders in, trying to make himself as small as he could in the corner. Small and non-threatening, his whole body begging for mercy from his past. He jerked with a gasp as he felt arms slide around his shoulders. His eyes flew open to see Billy on his side of the table to pull him against the other's chest.

  
Billy could see the man breaking apart and it would have broken his heart along with it, if he'd had one that functioned properly. No one had been there for him, not when his last sun went down, not when he discovered it had betrayed him when the dawn burned. He had been alone, left to his terror, left to explore what he had become on his own. He might have burned off his humanity in the many years since leaving Joseon, years before it became known as South Korea, but sympathy remained. He liked to think that it was what kept him apart from the deadly and cruel of his kind, what helped keep him apart from the one who had made him, the one he had killed. Losing the entirety of his humanity would only have made him a monster like them. That sympathy is what moved him to slide over next to Goodnight and offer the embrace that the other gladly melted into. He couldn't pretend that some part of him still wasn't being selfish, wanting to feel that glorious warmth against him. To catch the sweet scent of a forest springtime when he pressed his nose into the other's hair. The callouses of his hand caught on the faded grey suit jacket as he ran a hand up and down Goodnight's back, feeling the shift of painfully tensed muscles beneath the fabric. 

Billy hushed him and ran his fingers through the soft, auburn waves. Over him, he caught the eye of the waitress and Compelled her to bring them coffee. Her eyes were blank when she brought the carafe over with two mugs, but she smiled and nodded anyway. She disappeared into the back and returned minutes later to sit down a plate of eggs, hashbrowns and bacon, along with a bowl of grits, and left them to tend to others.

When the shakes receded, Billy gently pushed Goodnight back against the wall. The man breathed like he'd gone through rigorous exercise; he might as well had, forever running through the voices in his mind. Shame colored his lightly freckled cheeks and the bridge of his nose as he tried to avoid eye contact with Billy, but the other man chased his gaze until he caught it with those velvet dark pools of his own. Billy wouldn't Compel the man who already seemed to haunted with his own demons, he didn't need another.

"You alright now? What was it?" Billy asked in a whisper as he tried to spare the man's dignity. The whole diner didn't need to hear their business. He had been reading people for ages now, he knew that something he had said had triggered the fit.  
Goodnight closed his eyes, trying to focus. When he closed them, instead of blood upon the sand and antiseptic walls, however, he saw velvet darkness and heard the heavy comfort of the other man's voice. Scattered thoughts seemed to piece themselves together easier, in Billy's presence. For the moment, he could almost forget the smell of cordite and screams of brothers in arms, and the tremors seemed to fade. The arms around him kept him from falling apart, this time. A stranger taking pity, he would be left alone to his torment another time, but the man holding him kept him together, for this moment. He took a few deep breaths before beginning. "I'm... I'm fine now, mon ami," he answered quietly, ducking his head shamefully.  
Billy leaned back to give the man room to sit up fully, but still kept a hand on Goodnight's shoulder, as if the man would keel over the moment he let go. He nodded, satisfied with the response, but damn, if the blush across the other man's face didn't bring a curt smile to his face. "Ordered some food in case you're hungry. Might help."

Sheepishly, Goodnight whispered, "You didn't have ta, ya know... This is..."

Billy stopped him. "Didn't have to what? Be humanitarian?" He smiled at his own joke, and to his surprise, the corner of Goodnight's full lips ticked up in what might have been an attempt at his own grin. 

Goodnight's head sagged and he sighed heavily. "I don't... understand why'd ya wanna go and save a piece of Cajun trash like me," he breathed softly.

Billy's chest felt as if someone had crushed it with their bare hands. "Hey. Look at me." When Goodnight finally opened his eyes, peering shyly at him sideways and flinching at his minute movements, he continued. "You're not trash," he said firmly. "I don't see trash. I see someone who needs a hand up. Everyone does, even if not everyone gets it. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to offer you a hand. You took it. Means that you accepted my proposal." Billy kicked himself. What was he doing, opening himself to potential disaster? Proposal? Taking people into his life never ended well, even if it did mean a steady source of food.

Goodnight turned slightly to properly face Billy, his face twisted in curiosity and trepidation. "Proposal...?" he asked hesitantly.  
Billy sighed, squaring his shoulders as he rested against the wall behind him, studying the trembling shell of a man before him. He had opened his mouth, he couldn't back down now. Besides, the man intrigued him. His scent, his heat, there was a puzzle here that caught his attention unlike any other stimuli in the past century and more. What he needed was time, just enough time to see what lay under the surface. The man's sharp features, careworn and sun-kissed, told of someone who's seen hard life, for a human. His brilliant blue eyes shifted about uneasily and he had a tendency to jump at the slightest sound; paranoia, someone had hurt him, and likely he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. He had some vanity still, looking at his clothing and his hair, the meticulously kept beard that seemed to be growing out. But he realized that the clothing didn't seem to fit the figure right; they belonged to someone else. He was haunted, calling him by a nickname called his demons quickly. If left alone, either they would catch up with him, or he'd take his own life to be free. 

Still, Billy cursed himself for his offer, cursed the heart in him that pushed the idea foremost into his mind. Regardless, he opened his mouth again to speak, this time willing his voice to be a little more Compelling, not enough to frighten the man, nor enough to force him into mindlessly following. Just enough to calm him. "You're afraid," he began bluntly. "Watching all exits, looking over your shoulder, flinching at everything. You've been hurt. You're not trash, and you don't deserve whatever's been done. You need your back watched? Let me watch it for you. Just for a little while, and if you're ready to move on, leave, find my offer not to your liking, I won't stop you. But you're a man who's lacking more than one good night's rest. Don't trust me? That's fine. But I'm offering you a safe place, even if it's just for one night. One night of not looking over your shoulder, one night in a proper bed. Maybe a shower. That's it."

Goodnight watched him, eyes wide with confusion and distrust. Each breath came fitfully, shaking his shoulders as he fought to wind down the adrenaline again. His bones ached with the threat of something in the air as the room seemed to slow to a stop and nothing else existed beyond Billy and his words. He heard nothing beyond the soft shapes of the other man's mouth, a siren song that soothed the painful, heated rage and trepidation. Breathing was no longer a struggle as he settled down again into the booth. His brows furrowed again as the last words poured from Billy's lips and he shook his head slowly at the other man. "But... but why ME?" he begged.

Billy sighed. How hurt must this man be, to not understand kindness? Was that something he had ever known? Billy lay a forearm onto the table and leaned onto it, his other hand clutching the back of the booth they sat in. "Because I've been there," is all he offered with a tilt of his head. 

Goodnight sighed and looked down at the cooling plates of food. It had been some time since he'd seen something that wasn't cheap and foil wrapped, or not served in styrofoam. The other man's words roiled about his mind, a rolling boil of thoughts that had him trembling again. He had taken a trust in someone before, and it had lead him to too many nightmares and regrets. He closed his eyes tight against the memories that threatened to surface once again. Afghanistan winds whipped behind his eyes, the smell of blood and screams of his platoon, screams that morphed into something far more sinister, begging for release, to stop the pain, let them go, make it stop.... 

Goodnight didn't notice the whimper as he descended into the darkness of his mind, but Billy did. He gently curled a hand around the Cajun's neck, the muscles tensing in an interesting show of hidden strength before finally melting beneath the touch. Billy watched as the man receded within himself and he decided to put an end to the other man's downward spiral. They didn't have the time for that, and in the middle of a tiny diner in the midnight hour certainly wasn't the place. It was time for them to leave. He allowed for more strength in his voice to pull Goodnight free of his waking nightmare and push him into movement, but he wouldn't force the man to his will. Someone had been making decisions for Goodnight for some time now, it seemed, and he would not become one of his abusers. "Goodnight, focus. Listen to my voice." Billy watched as the man's breath caught in his throat on a sharp gasp and his muscles tightened once more, eyes still closed and head bowed slightly to accommodate the hand on his neck. "Are you hearing me?" Goodnight nodded slowly, as if in a trance, a whimper escaping his throat. "Good. Now, I'm offering you to come with me. Get some rest, a bath, some food. Or, we part ways here. Meal's paid for, it's yours, and I leave you to your own devices." Billy noted how the muscles beneath his hand quaked at the mention of his leaving. Curious. "I'm going to lift my hand now, and I'm going to need you to make a decision," he murmured clearly, reading the minute shifts in the other man's face. "Now," he said, slowly raising his hand to put it back on the booth behind them. "Tell me what you want."

For once blissful moment, beneath Billy's touch, everything that haunted Goodnight seemed to fall away into absolute silence, and the deep rumble of the other man's voice rang clear and pure as a bell. There was a special intoxication in those fingertips, something that calmed the raging burn in his muscles and ache in his joints. When the other man lifted his hand from Goodnight's neck, he sighed heavily as his shoulders slumped. Absently, he fidgeted with the hem of his coat. "I do not wish to be a burden unto you. You've done too much already."

Billy had to supress a growl. Who had hurt him, to make him think a late breakfast was more than he was worth? "I want you to understand one thing, Goodnight. Look at me," he whispered, curling a forefinger beneath the Cajun's chin and turning his head. "Open your eyes and look at me, please."

Goodnight shivered at the touch of that finger. That one kind touch. Fearfully, he looked up at Billy through long, sandy brown lashes that clung together with moisture. A tear escaped, cutting through dirt upon his cheek. What he found in the other man's gaze was a powerful compassion, determination, and something that begged Goodnight believe. He swallowed loudly and ran his tongue along his bottom lip.

"Good," Billy murmured and that little praise sent electricity through Goodnight's spine and warmth pooling in his gut. "I will make this simple. Will you come with me?" Goodnight nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving the mesmerizing pool of Billy's dark gaze. "Good boy," Billy said softly, moving his hand to cup Goodnight's cheek and the man melted into the touch, breathing out a soft noise. When was the last time this man had been touched without malice, Billy wondered. With his other hand, he reached into Goodnight's lap and slid his fingers into the fidgeting hand there. "Do you intend to eat any of this? You don't have to if you don't wish." Goodnight shook his head. He couldn't remember the last time he was hungry, his belly being too full of terror and his pockets being too empty, the stress had robbed him of an appetite. Billy didn't seem to be upset at this, instead slowly and steadily pulling at the hand in his. "Then follow me. Come. You'll be safe with me, I promise."  
That was almost something Goodnight could believe. Running scared, homeless and hungry, found in an alley and saved from a brutal attack, some stranger offering him safety? It'd been too long since before he'd had any safety, long before even the lab and his friends falling into whatever the government had been selling. Too good to be true, but he was tired and cold. This could very well be another trap as much as the others had been, the government's promise of pay and education through military service, then the VA and their promises to help with their secret scientists. 

However, something in this stranger begged at Goody to trust him, and he wanted to. The man was attractive, someone who hadn't looked in his direction since before Afghanistan and Kuwait. There was an underlying lust that called to him, some attraction that could not be ignored, a compulsion he couldn't explain. He looked up into Billy's eyes and caught the flash of something there, a brilliant few flecks of crimson, and the adrenaline in his system began to spike again. He clamped his teeth tightly to contain the growl, but he couldn't stop the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck standing on end. The question came too easily to him, came out before he could stop it and he watched Billy's face slide from comfort and ease to something more stony and cold.

"What are you?" Goodnight asked breathlessly, his voice shaking. He remembered labs full of people with peculiar eyes. Even the doctor had a glow in his eyes, something red and malicious that made his job fitting.

Billy stood ramrod straight but his fingers tightened a fraction around Goodnight's hand, eyes narrowed so slightly that Goodnight thought he'd imagined it, along with with flash of light. "I think that's a conversation better left to other surroundings, if you will wait," he said darkly, bowing his head long enough to let the shadow of his inner rage flash over and gone. He'd wanted the other man to follow him without word, to give in to the urge to slide into the darkness with him so that he could dissect this creature and discover what made him too irrestistable. Thankfully, his charisma was strong enough to take the hit to his abilities. "Look," he began, peering up at Goody through thick, black lashes. "...I get this feeling that you're someone in a situation that you don't know how to escape from, and I can help..."

"How?" Goodnight barked sharply, a cruel, sardonic reply that had him feeling itchy and sore as tears began to form along his lashes. His voice was dangerous and low and thick with his accent, trembling as he fought to keep the shift at bay. "How're you gon' help me? I can't sleep, I can't stay 'n one place too long, I can't leave, I'm positively destitute and you want to invite me into your home??" Goodnight whined, his shoulders shrinking upon themselves as he seemed to make himself seem smaller, less threatening in the corner of the booth.

The hand still in Billy's trembled and the assassin could feel the pricking of sharp nails against his pale skin. He had to defuse this situation and do it now to prevent an incident of bloody proportions in a regular, human diner. Slowly, he lowered himself to his knees outside of the booth where Goodnight cowered, attempting to take a less dominant posture and keeping eye contact the whole time. A cornered beast was a dangerous one. "Breathe with me for a moment," he murmured softly.

"What?" Goodnight asked, his head twisting in a canine manner as his brows furrowed. Those teeth definitely looked sharper than a human's...

Billy understood the humor behind the question but pressed the issue anyways. "Breathe with me. Calm yourself. You're in a diner and you're...." The assassin couldn't stop the reflex, taking in the gentle, wild and woodsy scent that permeated this man. "We are not like them and it would benefit us both not to upset the room right now. So breathe, Mr Robicheaux. At least until i can convince you to come to a safer place with me. And then, we'll talk."

Goodnight understood the reasoning behind the other man's behavior, was thankful for the attempts to not frighten him more, and figured, if the other man had wanted to hurt him, it could have been in an alley, and he could have been more of an asshole about wasted food. Instead, the man had been nothing if not respectful and kind. Rather the opposite of what he expected, had he seen a man in his own state, he was ashamed to say. Slowly, he let his fingers slide further into Billy's hand and let the other man pull him from the booth, strengthening his grip as the anxiety of leaving began to make itself known. Out there, there were men who wanted him, chased him even to New Orleans. He'd thought Billy was one, but chances are better that the dead man in the alley had been sent by the VA's officials.

Billy smiled and the room seemed to dim in comparison. "It's not too far from here," he said quietly, face softening when he heard Goody's breathing begin to speed up once more. "It's okay, it's okay, no one will harm you while you're with me. I promise."

Against all better judgement, Goodnight believed him. Taking the hand Billy offered him as soon as he slid out of the booth, Goody’s eyes bashfully turned down to the floor, his cheeks and the tips of his ears spreading pink throughout. “It would be an quite rude to turn down a gentleman’s offer.”

Billy ducked in answer, his voice dark and sultry as he looked up at Goodnight, grinning his sharp grin and peering up at the other man through his dark lashes. “I am no gentleman.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The root of the issue here is....

'Home' wasn't the proper word for it. More like, a base of operations within the town he happened to be hunting in. A walk through the darkness through busted gates and cut fences, after a ride across town in a taxi, lead them to the shipyards, abandoned buildings and industrial lofts that had been consigned to the Gulf after a history of Level Five storms had caused them to be seen as unsafe. These places had been left as rotting hulks to what was once a thriving shipping concern, but after the storm surges battered the brick and steel, businesses had moved somewhere safer, another city all together along the Mississippi delta that hadn't been quite so damaged. Now these places were havens for the homeless and those who sought to get away from society for one reason or another. A few dollars to an artist living on another level of the building he had claimed, and Billy's space had color and personality. There were a dozen of these places, all over the world, safe havens protected by anonymity and no regulations.

He had resigned himself that one day, like neighboring buildings sold to brokers or private concerns, he might return to find the building razed to the ground, but so far, nothing quite so dire had happened. Any gear, he had resigned, would be buried, but nothing but some intense lifting wouldn't cure. Nothing he hadn't done before. He was used to rebuilding his life from the ashes, having done so many times since he’d arrived in what was once known as “The New World”. A child in Joseon, now South Korea, it was shortly after coming to America with his family in the 1800s that he found himself face to face with a bloodsucker and held his own, impressing a Hunter that had been hiding in the shadows. His lifetime of service began after watching his meager family devoured after coming to a land promising bounty and success, and instead found a family weakened by travel overseas in horrid conditions fall prey to a vampire. After the assassin finally fell in exhaustion to the creature, the Hunter stepped forward to finish the demon off and spare Billy from the bite of creation. At least, until Billy begged to Hunt with him. Then it was tradition to become a half-blood, to be better, faster, colder and stronger.

How long had it been since he’d seen his mentor Red Harvest? 

The door swung open with the creak of rusty metal, a low-tech security system of itself, and it revealed a large open floorplan, what must have once been a bank of cubicle offices that now gave way to hundreds of square foot of unused space. Far into the corner however, were a row of offices and within one, Goodnight could see a cozy living area composed of found items. A woodburning stove gave warmth and allowed the utility of cooking, it’s smoke dissipated cleverly through a series of sieves. A large bed stood to the right of it, in a corner where the light trickled in through windows still stained with the silt of floodwaters and the filth of industrial pollution. A large rug ran beneath the front of the stove, the bed, and the couch and chair that sat before it. To the left of the stove, he could see a cabinet where a sink and tarnished faucet sat gloomily. This had to have been the office’s lunch room.

“It, ah…” Billy began lamely. He’d never had guests, he had no idea what he was doing. “It’s not much, but it works,” he sighed, striding over to the counter where the sink stood. 

Goodnight huffed a laugh, his fingers running over the back of the ornate Victorian couch that once would have sufficed to stand in his childhood home’s parlor. It brought back a flash of memory that had him gritting his teeth as his head fell forward. Billy watched him stumble for a moment the straighten, his head snapping up with a sharp breath. He stood still for a moment as a powerful shiver rolled through him, the memory tearing through him on it’s way out as sharply as it did when it came. He glanced at Billy out of the corner of his eye and Billy felt the weight Goodnight carried when he looked into that fearful blue gaze. “Worry not, it’s actually rather charming,” Goodnight huffed again. “It’s lovely to see life will itself out where the world would have given up on it for good and forgotten,” he murmured softly. The man walked around the edge of the couch and sank into it gingerly but with all the class of a man who came from an affluent family. “And I must say, it’s encouraging to see this prime real estate being used for something other than ruin. Artist’s lofts are all the rage, you could rent out areas of this and live like a king.”

Billy chuckled. “Artists don’t make shit for money.”

With a loud guffaw, Goodnight slapped his knee. “With your honesty, I’m sure you could manage something that’ll sell to the masses.”

The gravelly laugh pulled at the entity within Billy that still wondered about the man on the couch. There was nothing wolven in the man’s aura, nothing wolven about his smell, and yet there it was in his laugh, in the glint of his eyes, in the grace of his body. He began busying himself filling a percolator to sit upon the stove before kneeling before it and lighting it easily.   
The man was a mystery. He’d been ready to fall apart only an hour before, close to a full breakdown, but Billy was beginning to see the man beyond the fear, the human complexities that lay beneath the terrified façade he’d met in the alley. There was something mesmerizing here and the greedy part that lay within him was growing less and less willing to let him go.  
Or kill him, if he proved to be a danger to himself or to the world around him. Billy still had an obligation that lived within him down to his bones, and a growing affection couldn’t stand in the way, regardless of how protective he felt at the moment.  
Standing with a heavy sigh, the coffee now beginning to warm, Billy turned to Goodnight, rubbing his hands together as he planned out his words. This would require some delicacy. “It seems you’re beginning to feel better.”

Eyes darted back to Billy, and he could read the fight or flight clearly on the man’s face. He saw the man’s eyes dart back to the door, then the coffee, then back to him, and Goodnight seemed to come to a decision then, his face softening. “It’s beginning to ease up, no trouble whatsoever, friend.” The attempt at brevity fell flat with the quivering in his voice. “It’s nothing, really.”

Billy would not be foisted off with false platitudes. He took a moment to kneel before the man and Goodnight leaned back as far as he could against the couch. The assassin held his hands out before him. “May I see your hands?” he asked simply.  
Goodnight’s bottom lip trembled. There was a bizarre sense of dread that hadn’t failed to keep him alive yet and all he wanted to do was run from the circumstances, but nothing in him wanted to move. There was a light in the other man’s eye that spoke of no harm despite the man appearing as if, were it necessary, it would be no issue to rend another individual limb from limb. But instead of passing his hands to Billy, his voice sounded so small when he asked, “What will happen to me if I do?”

Billy sighed heavily. There was no point in establishing a relationship of any kind on lies, but it didn’t mean the truth need not be stretched occasionally. “It’s a form of guided meditation. You’re in a bad place, Robicheaux. We can get to the center of whatever issue is harming your mind if we can calm and focus. It’ll help me as much as yourself.” 

Well. Hypnosis was a form of meditation, right?

Billy could watch the war play across Goodnight’s face, the flinch of his brow and the tremble of pursed lips, he could see the man chewing on his cheek in nervous contemplation. But slowly, haltingly, Goodnight slid his tremulous hands into the cool, steady grip of the man before him. “Now, I just want you to breathe with me. Keep your eyes open if it helps, but we’re going to breathe deep through your nose for a five count, then out through your mouth for the same. Can you do that for me?”

Goodnight’s ears twitched when he saw the flash of something in Billy’s eyes once again, but the man had shown nothing but trust and kindness, something far from anyone else who had been in his life. While his body wanted to flee, his muscles twitching as if they begged for action, his heart asked him to give the man before him, peculiar or not, a chance. Something the man had done for him. Haltingly, he nodded. “Yes,” came the meek reply.

The light in Billy’s eyes flashed again and the breath caught in Goody’s throat. He couldn’t sense malevolence, nothing that he sensed from the nurses and doctors in the hospitals and the lab he’d escaped. So he steeled himself with a whimper, instinct fighting against will alone.

Billy took a deep, steadying breath, even if breathing were not strictly necessary it still centered him. “Now you need to keep eye contact with me, can you do that?” Goodnight’s lashed fluttered as he flinched, but he nodded regardless, fixing his gaze with Billy’s with a deep breath. It was Billy’s words that sent warmth pooling in his belly, “Good boy. You’re doing great. Now, keep eye contact, breathe with me, and this will center you. Are you ready?”

Goodnight took one deep breath and held it for a moment, puffing out his cheeks as he let it flow from his nose. “Yes. I can do this.” His whole spirit called at him to flee, but despite the preternatural glow in the other man’s eyes, Goody felt nothing malevolent from the man before him. He had been gentle and kind when others had been cruel, and had been honest where others had fed him nothing but lies. Against his own will, Goodnight settled into the couch more comfortably and steeled himself against the fear that rattled beneath his skin, the fear that he would lose control and become the monster they had turned him into. He had to take this moment and calm the adrenaline that spurred his beast, and that’s what meditation was for, right? 

The assassin nodded, and slowly, carefully, unleashed the full capability of his Compelling upon Goodnight. The man keened forlornly, his eyes trying to close against the power upon him. Billy gently pushed his will upon the trembling man, linking them together to soothe along the new bond and slowly, the shakes began to subside. Goody forced himself to breath on the count given and eventually, he stilled, eyes locked unwavering upon the assassin’s before him.

Billy took a moment to observe Goodnight’s body language and when it registered that he had settled, he began to speak. “Are you with me, Goodnight?” When the man nodded, he continued. “Good. I’m going to ask you some questions. I need you to remain calm and answer them to the best of your memory. We can understand what happened easier this way, how I can best help you. Do you consent?” Billy would go no further without the other man’s permission, but instead, the other man’s eyes warmed a fraction and he nodded, as if in those few moments together, Goodnight had learned to trust him. “Are you comfortable?” A nod. “Is your name Goodnight Robicheaux?”

“Lieutenant Arthur Goodnight Hebert Robicheaux, present and accounted for, sir,” Goody answered distantly, and Billy realized then that the man before him had served military. It made sense, with the rigidity and the presence the man commanded.

Billy’s fingers caressed the hands in his for a moment as they sat limp and warm in his cool grasp. “What happened to lead you to the bar where I found you?” Goodnight sucked in a loud harsh breath and sat up painfully straight, eyes wide in fear as he began to tremble again, and Billy stroked the soft skin on the top of the other man’s hand with his thumbs. “Shh, calm…. I have you, you’ll be just fine, you’re safe and no one will harm you here, Goody. Shhh…” The man’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, but his breathing remained erratic and labored. “I need to know what happened and this is the best way.”

Goodnight sobbed through a tremor. “We were experiments,” he whimpered. “Three of us. Private Joshua Faraday. Staff Sergeant Alejandro Vasquez. Lieutenant Goodnight Robicheaux. Three broken soldiers no one would miss. Said they…. said they’d assist in lessening if not curing our issues. PTSD. Monsters. We were monsters of one kind, turned into monsters of another. I have no other descriptors, except that they turned us into literal monsters. Adrenaline triggers it. I become…” Goodnight gasped through the tremor, a tear running through the dirt on his cheek as Billy shushed him. “I’m a… I think I’m a werewolf…”

The assassin hushed him, stroking the hands he held. He took a deep breath out of reflex to scent the air, and nothing of the nature permeated the other man. The only thing that made him reconsider was the soft hairs that began to appear along the tops of Goodnight’s hands, but even those had no scent. He felt assured in knowing the adrenal response and it’s reaction upon the older man’s body. There were so many questions he had, if whether or not the man were feral upon full transition, what his full form looked like if not a traditional wolven, and what a positive adrenal response could do as opposed to negative.

The man was a puzzle, and Billy resolved to place the pieces and help Goodnight. 

“You’re safe. You’re alright, Goody,” Billy spoke slow and quiet. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. Do you believe me?” The other man nodded. “Do you trust that I can keep you safe?” Another nod. “Good. Now listen to me. What happened to the other two men? Are they like you?”

Goodnight faltered. “I… I don’t know. I ran. I panicked and I became…” The man gulped, his mouth and throat dry. “I ran. I’m sorry…” The sob that had been threatening finally came forth. “I’m so sorry, boys. I left them there and I should have stayed to free them and…”

Billy hushed him once more. “I’m going to hug you now, is that okay?” When Goody nodded haltingly, Billy stood up upon his knees and slowly drew the sobbing man into his embrace. “I’ve got you, Goodnight. You’re alright now.” At those words, the man melted into the assassin, sagging against him as the weariness began to take hold. He let the man sob for a few moments more, the spell of the Compelling well and broken. After a few deep breaths, he began to sit up, sucking in deep breaths to settle the quivering within his chest. Billy cupped Goodnight’s face and cursed himself when the man leaned into it; had the man so rarely been given a kind touch? “Are you with me now?” 

Goodnight leaned into the cool touch on his cheek on instinct and closed his eyes against the mesmerizing oblivion within Billy’s eyes. Within those orbs lay forever, and Goody would gladly find himself lost in those depths. It wasn’t fair, that eventually, he’d run or Billy would once he’d learned the beast within, and a boyhood fascination at his age would only end in heartbreak. Without his knowing, another tear trekked through the dirt upon his face and Billy thumbed it away with a calloused thumb. 

“You going to be alright now?” Billy murmured in the space between them and Goody nodded, his cheeks darkening at the familiarity of their distance and the gentle touch. Billy ached to show the man something more than the cruelty that he’d been faced with, but he’d just brought a stranger from the streets into his home, and while he knew the circumstances of the man’s transformation, he knew nothing else about this Goodnight Robicheaux, not even how he appeared beneath the grim of New Orleans. “How about a hot shower, some clean clothes? I have spares you can borrow until we can find some of your own. Would you like that?” Billy asked quietly. When Goody nodded, Billy stood, still clutching one of the other man’s hands. “I have a shower set up in here. You can get cleaned up, I have a razor if you want to use it, and I’ll get you something to wear,” he spoke gently as he pulled Goody to his feet. “Then you can get some rest, here were you’ll be safe.”

Goodnight huffed, his shoulders sagging with relief. Could he really believe he’d be safe here? Surely the people he’d run from were still looking for him, but this man seemed rather capable, and the massive area around them provided them with the open space to keep an eye on their surroundings. It surely seemed safer than the alleyways and the darkened doorways he’d hid in before now. 

Billy lead Goodnight to a small room that must have been a janitorial closet. It leant itself well to the use as shower room, where water hook ups had been installed for the wash. Billy had installed visible plumbing and a showerhead and had reappropriated a clawfoot bathtub from some home that had been abandoned, and it offered Goodnight the opportunity to soak and relax muscles that had been bunched up long before his tour of duty. The room had been scrubbed from top to bottom and along one wall sat a shelf with linens, the only things other than the bed that seemed to be new in comparison to the place. The room still smelled of cleaning supplies, and Goodnight couldn’t tell if it was because Billy cleaned passionately, or if there were residual smells lingering from ages as a cleaning closet. Regardless, the room was clean and comfortingly cozy as compared to the living area, even if it did lack a door. 

The assassin left Goody with the promise to return with clean clothing and the old soldier began to draw the bath, slowly peeling the layers of clothing from his body. They reeked of sweat and dirt and a dozen other things he may have sat in. The old three-piece suit had certainly seen better days, and despite the social upbringing that demanded proper dress, Goodnight was glad to be rid of it. The pile grew as he began to fumble with the buttons of his shirt, and a knock at the doorjamb made him jump and spin with a snarl. The other man merely cocked his head, the corner of his lip curling in a small smirk, and he offered the folded laundry in his hands.

“Would you like some help?” Billy intoned, nodding towards the buttons.

Goodnight’s blush spread to his neck and colored the barely visible collarbones. It was the color of humiliation, of embarrassment. What kind of gentleman had he been raised to be, what kind of soldier had he been, to come to a place where he would be unable to undress himself in front of a stranger? “No, sir, I think…” Goodnight looked down as his fingers slipped from the buttons once more. “I think…” Finally, he sighed. “I think I might, if you please.” Not that he had any modesty anymore, after sharing barracks with a dozen other men and then a tent with a dozen more. He had shame, and that is what stayed his hands at the buttons, watching as Billy carefully pried his hands from the tight clutch of his shirt. Goody hoped the other man didn’t notice him holding his breath.

“Shh,” Billy approached him as one would a spooked animal, hands raised until he could pull the white knuckled fingers from Goody’s shirt. “You’ll be okay. I’ll help you with this, I assume you can handle the rest?” Billy’s fingers flitted over the buttons quickly, deftly working them open until he could see the soft, scarred layer of fat over developed muscle. He refused to acknowledge the dusting of darker curly hairs across the man’s developed pectorals, or the trail that lead down from his navel. This was not the body of a homeless veteran as Goody seemed too healthy to have been on the streets long. After the last button had been set, Billy stepped back, hoping to allow the man to finish undressing himself and salvage some of his dignity.

Goody watched as Billy left the room, the ill feeling in his gut dissipating the further the assassin stepped away from him. He had shied away from looking directly at the other man's features, but could not escape the gaze of those endless dark eyes or the cut of the man's cheekbones. For once, luck had shone upon him in being taken in by a creature so handsome to look at, or so Goodnight would liked to have thought. The paranoid depression that lived unendingly behind his breastbone growled at him from deep within, telling him that the man would either turn him into the facility he'd escaped from, or would kill him once he'd learned what Goodnight was. What hurt worse was the thought that he might become the raging animal within and hurt Billy, or kill him outright. For some reason, this idea caused his heart more pain than the idea that he return to the labs he'd left. 

What damage the world had inflicted upon the old soldier seemed to melt away in the hot waters of the bath, along with the grime and the aches. He soaked for only as long as it seemed polite, using someone else's bath, but it was enough to ensure the filth washed away. His hair was now a clean curtain of soft brown that he combed back with his fingers. Quickly healing bruises were shrinking against the freckled, pale skin, and lacerations were no more than the pink threat of breaking flesh scratched into his arms and legs. At least his healing had accelerated, Goodnight mused. It was a fleeting thought, the idea of whether cutting his wrists would do any good, but he dismissed it as soon as it came. Hell might still await him for taking his own life, even if his faith were dead, and if it were worse than what he'd endured already, he found himself in no rush to meet it.

His hands no longer shook so violently as he slipped into the sweats and tee-shirt left for him by Billy, and he stepped out into the great studio to find Billy with a steaming cup waiting for him. "I hope you don't mind. You seem like you need sleep, so I made tea instead of coffee. Should help."

Goodnight took the tea offered and looked down into the cup, then back up to Billy with a brilliant smile. "You know we drink it differently down here, right?" He took a tentative sip and closed his eyes against the slightly sweet and mellowed flavors of green tea and chamomile. Opening his eyes, he noted Billy without a cup of his own. "Interesting flavors. Will you not drink with me? And this couch will be plenty comfortable, if I could just ask the use of a blanket?"

Billy crossed his arms over his chest. "You can take the bed. I don't sleep much." As the other man began to protest, the assassin merely shook his head. "You seem to feel something or someone is after you. I'll keep watch."

"But, Billy..." Goody replied, humility and shame burning through him. "I can't ask this of you. We just met and..."

The other man then took Goodnight's shoulders in hand, and Goody's skin burned at the contact. "I barely use the bed. Someone should get some use out of it. I have work before I can sleep, if I will at all."

Goodnight looked pained, but lowered his chin to his chest in defeat. "As you wish," he murmured softly. "But you make sure to rest. You've been too kind to me, it'd do no good for your well-being to suffer on my account."

Billy huffed as Goodnight finished the tea quickly. The man seemed eager to make use of the bed. It was quite possibly the only good sleep the man had had in a long while, and now cleaned and relaxed, was quick to drop off to sleep once he'd been nestled amongst the pillows and sheets. Billy watched the uneven rise and fall of Goodnight's chest even out until it was obvious the man had dropped into a deep rest, and then, Billy quietly slipped out of the studio and onto the rooftop.

Out into the distance, where the night grew darker, shone a lone bright light that bespoke a presence that preached care and comfort in one's pain, a pharmaceutical corporation that promised dignity and well-being. No one except the people that worked there knew what really happened in the labs deep below the large complex, and the fear of God had been put into them. No one dared expose what horrors took place there, for fear of swift and deadly retribution. The head CEO of the company took care of these deadly promises himself, stepping down from his throne to enact his scorched earth policy on those who spoke, and to those whom the people spoke to. The whole of the city was afraid of the ruthless man, but the voice that Billy had heard within Goodnight's head haunted him. He'd head the name somewhere, if not in hushed circles that spoke of him like an urban legend.

"Don't tattle, or Bogue's gonna get you," the children of New Orleans say...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gathering storm....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter answering questions of, where the rest of our gang is and what they're up to prior to the coming storm.

"Push the thorazine!"  
"I did!"  
"Well, give him another dose! He's not responding!"  
"Jesus! He's bent the table! Do something!"

The men behind the protective glass worked in a frenzy to secure the thrashing man to the table, lashing thick leather belts over the man's bared chest, waist, and legs to prevent any more movement that could break the bonds already across his wrists and ankles. The man's back arched painfully off of the metal slab upon which he lay, his jaw wrenched open in a sheer screech of pain. 

"Fentanyl, 100mcg, prepped and ready..."  
"Are you TRYING to kill him??"  
"I'm trying to keep him from killing us!"

Another cry, a roar of absolute rage, tore through the room, echoing off of the glass and down the hall of the secured underground laboratory. This cry, however, was answered with another from down the hall, a desperate cry of terror and agony. And as the rage-filled howls bounced off of the sterile walls and the windows of surgery studios, one man watched from the darkened side of the glass, hands clasped behind his back. He stood stoic and quiet, a force of the darkest side of nature clothed in Armani and silk. He read the read-outs clipped to the board on his desk, his eyes scanning over the name quickly; it never mattered to him, these were disposable people, homeless and faceless, ripe for his purposes. All that mattered were results, and these were dismal. 

"Mr. Bogue, sir," the technician, a meek and nervous man called into the room as he kept his distance.   
"What is it?" Bogue replied, sounding bored.  
"Mr Faraday is showing results, and...."  
"Who?" Bogue turned, focusing his hazel eyes upon the poor technician, who motioned out into the room where the man had finally begun to calm.  
"Subject BR549. His name is Faraday..."

"It doesn't matter. He's another to pass on your work, Dr Harp, I'm sure you'll be proud once he successfully passes the tests you've put forth, isn't that right, Harp?" Bogue glared burningly into the technician's eyes for a moment before turning back to the glass. "When you return, it will be only with affirmations, not disappointment. And if that takes disposing of one of these gullible and weak street people and moving on to the next subject, that's what will happen. Am I clear?"

Dr Harp nodded jerkily as he took a step back. "Yes, sir. Crystal. Of course, sir. Thank you, sir." And with that, Harp disappeared, and Bogue was left to watch as the man finally settled to the table, his chest heaving for breath as his face went slack. 

From somewhere else in the facility, another howl of rage echoed, the man upon the table letting out one last whimper, and Bogue smiled.

* * *

  
He looked over the files upon his desk, missing people, some presumed dead, mostly all homeless and unwanted, but none held as much passion and desire as the one in that sat in his top drawer. Cold cases, every one, including the file of his best friend, hidden away just so that he didn't spend every waking hour thinking about what could have happened to Goodnight Robicheaux.

New Orleans Police Chief Sam Chisolm had years of successful cases and collars beneath him. He first served his years as a beat cop, walking the streets in hopes of making the city a safer place. His gun had never had to fire a shot, when he faced perpetrators with reason and persuasion. It was his final years as a beat cop that saw him escorting the hungry and afraid out of a flooded New Orleans, those actions securing him a position as a detective for his courage and leadership. 

It was easy to make people follow his lead, when he had a gift for coersion. When all he had to do was tell the perpetrator to lower their weapon, kneel and put their hands behind their heads, it was easy to rise through the ranks. However, he had always wanted to feel as if he had earned his way through the ranks, and had never used his ability on anyone other than criminals. So his district had a distinct lack of gangs and crime was on the decline; impressive for previously infamous area of town. 

However, what bothered him was the inability to make use of his gift to solve the crimes now spread across his desk. Too many missing, homeless and destitute and without family to report them missing. Even if one of the missing had been his best friend, there was no one to interrogate, no one to drag down to the station and force to confess to their crimes.

No one except Bogue. 

Chisolm knew, just knew that Bogue, that arrogant son of a bitch in his castle outside of the city limits, had to be behind the missing. What Chisolm lacked is the evidence, or even the probable cause to drag the man down out of his tower. Even if he could, he was a New Orleans City Official, and only parish sheriffs could touch Bogue. Unless something major were to happen.  
All Chisolm could do was wait for the right moment, a moment that he had faith was coming soon. As he looked down at the file in his hands, at the picture of a bright and polished Goodnight in his dress uniform, all he could do was hang on to that faith, and pray his friend was alright.

* * *

  
To the east, deeper into the woods and the brackish waters of the bayous than anyone wished to travel, filled with cottonmouth and alligator, stood a lonely cabin that looked every bit a part of the environment in which it sat. Moss grew across the roof and down the vine strewn walls. The porch looked as if it might fall in with one heavy step, and the cabin itself seemed only large enough to house a stove, a bed, and a means to wash. It certainly didn't seem big enough for the man that came lumbering out of the open doorway. He put his nose to the air just as the sound of finely tuned Japanese engineering began to echo off of the massive cypress that towered over the clearing in which the home set. The man smiled as a polished black and chrome motorcycle slowed before him.

The man on the motorcycle removed his helmet, the long locks of his mohawk cascading over the shaven parts of his head. His chiseled face, his swarthy complexion and indifferent expression was enough to make the man on the porch laugh as he shook his head. 

"Why, Red Harvest, what brings you out here? No carrier pigeon, letter or call, I expect the Lord has sent you to do some powerful work," said the large man in his uniquely stressed, tinny voice as he ran his fingers through his snowy hair. He knew the young man upon the bike would have only shown with stressful news; there was no other way to contact him, without a phone or even electricity. He had meant to hide from humanity, and he had been succeeding until now.

The man upon the motorcycle swung his leg forward over the handlebars, then hung the helmet upon the handle. "Your faith hasn't lied to you, old friend," he said, steel in his words as he stood. "Something comes. You will be needed."

The older man swallowed audibly, his face darkening as he wavered where he stood, ready to step back into the house and close the door. "You mean... you'll need THAT," he muttered with a choked voice. "Why in Heaven's name... you promised...."

Red crossed the clearing and stepped onto the porch quickly, placing a calming hand upon the older man's shoulder. "I keep my promises. You will be needed. That won't necessarily be required."

The man nodded, swallowing thickly as Red Harvest guided them back into the cabin. "Tell me. What must I do?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last of the horsemen saddle up, and feelings begin to bloom between hunter and hunted...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd

The idea that others were willing to help in this adventure still surprised Billy to no end. He had spent his life being a lone wolf, always on his own to take down whatever threat crossed his path, but now, they were looking at an attack on Bogue and his industrial conplex. Billy would need all the help he could get, in any form. 

It was an hour before the first rays would tease the horizon. It always seemed as if it were darker there for a few moments before the threatening lip of light began to ease it's way up. The stars were more vibrant for those few minutes, the night just a little more pure. It was a breath of air he no longer needed, and it set his mind straight just to watch the promise of sunrise.

Then there was the question about what to do with Goodnight. The vagabond below in his bed that seemed to actually cleaned up decently. Perhaps a little too decently. The dhampyr hadn't anticipated his heart deciding to enter the fray and it was an experience he hadn't had since before he'd been changed. His heart had been pushed silent in his chest from the first child he'd seen slain, from the first family he'd had to wade through. He knew then he'd need a hard heart and a steeled, powerful mind to perform his duties and save what he could of mankind. So when he watched the other man step from the bathroom and settle himself upon the clean sheets of his bed, he he couldn't begin to name the lurch within his chest. The man had entered the bathroom a ragged street dweller and emerged a beautiful creature of a grace he had no idea that he'd possessed. 

Goodnight began to weave himself into Billy's thoughts without any permission from one or the other, and Billy couldn't find it within himself to be particularly angry, or thankful. He wanted to step into the loft and shake the man from his bed, demand an apology, an explanation, something. A lifetime of selfless behavior had the assassin pushing the thought to the side; what if Goodnight had no control over this? It seemed as if he had been turned then thrown out onto the street by some psychotic individual looking to sit back and enjoy the collateral damage. Whether he was turned out or he has escaped as he insisted, there would be someone out there looking for him, and Billy would prevent this from happening. Goody might have only been a few years in his presence, but there was something good and precious, too innocent, within Goodnight. The man had endured too much hate and pain already, and even if the man possessed a pale body of freckles and muscle Billy wanted to trace with fingertips and tongue, the man deserved protection.

No. These thoughts were becoming an issue. Passion had no place in the hunt.

The sun finally began to leak over the edge of the world, and Billy returned within. The sun never really bothered him, but there was some planning to do, and some calls he had to make. He would need some assistance for the attack to come.   
Goodnight stirred only slightly when Billy prepared the coffee, the assassin trying to keep the silence down. It was the smell permeating the area that finally had ice blue eyes tracking his movements. Goody didn't move, only watched from his warm and comfortable cocoon of blankets as Billy fetched two mugs to fill and placed them on the coffee table before the tattered couch.

The assassin looked up from where he stood and caught the other man's eye and the edge of his lips quirked up in a quick smile. He tried hard not to focus on the shape of the man beneath his blankets, how the sheets hung off of the others slim hips or how he'd never be able to sleep there now without the other man's smell in his pillows. Almost as if he knew the depth's of his tease, Goody smiled, brilliant and bright and the low light glittering off of the one gold tooth in his grin. 

"Good morning," the old soldier rasped, his voice dry and rough. Billy answered this with a glass of water as he sat at the edge of the bed to offer it to Goody. When the man took it, their fingers brushed and it sent a heat coursing through his veins and boiling in the pit of his stomach. Goodnight must have had the same reaction, judging from the attractive blush that painted his cheeks and the coy way he ducked his head. "Thank you," he whispered shyly, downing the water hungrily within seconds. Their fingers brushed once more when Goodnight gave the glass back, then stretched himself across the sheets with a feline grace, arms raised above his head putting his pectorals on display. This had to be the man Goodnight Robicheaux was, not the simpering man he'd met the other night, but the flirt, the man who knew that there was a modicum of worth within, strong and sure. This was the glimpse he'd been trying to find, after a tease of it had been flashed the night before. He hated to ruin the moment, and the picture.

Billy's eyes raked over the shirtless form then turned away, head bowed in an attempt at concentration. "We need to discuss a few things, Goodnight," he began simply. "I think I've figured out what happened."

Goodnight's face fell slowly as he sat up. "And?" he asked weakly. He didn't want to hear the answer, didn't want to know what Billy was thinking, but he knew that this was the means to an end. "What're you thinking?" His voice was small and shy. There was a part of him that expected Billy to turn him back in to the facility he escaped from. Mostly, he prayed that the man would send him away, perhaps to come along. The manner in which he carried himself was a work of beauty, the man itself art incarnate, and though Goodnight would wish to look at that face for the rest of his days, it was enough to just be away from the pain and guilt. 

The guilt would always eat him, having left two men behind, but he would eventually learn to live with his decision, now he was free. As a soldier, it was drilled into his brain never to leave a man behind and he had left two. Well, he was never a successful soldier, it only made sense he fail at this, too. If he could watch the minute and delicate play of emotions on the other man's face and watch the smooth movement of muscle beneath the other's skin, if only for a little longer, it would make living in exile a bit more bearable. But the way Billy spoke, there would be no peace, if not for now.

Billy seemed to sense the other man drifting away on his thoughts when he watched the blush fade from the other man and his pupils widen in fear. "It's okay, Goody. You're alright," he murmured. "I've got some powerful friends we're going to go talk to, outside of town. You'll like them." Billy looked off into the distance over Goodnight's shoulder and sucked at his teeth, tsking. "Well, you might like Jack. Red's not so talkative. But they're strong and willing to help. You can stay there while we take care of a few things."

Things? Goody wondered. "When do we leave?" he asked uneasily. "I don't know if I'm ready to be around... around new people..." he muttered meekly. 

The assassin seemed to understand and before he could register his movement, placed a hand upon Goodnight's knee. "We'll leave only when you're ready. I won't force you, but where we're going, you'll be able to learn about yourself better and control what it is within you. There's a wolf inside, begging to be let out. Jack can help you leash it to your command. You be in control of it, instead of letting it control you."

Goody shifted uneasily. "So... so I am a werewolf..." he whispered softly, hopelessly as he looked out into the distance, what he could see of Louisiana outside of the scum-frosted window panes. His face clouded over with distrust. "How did you come to find me, how can you be so... so calm and rational in the face of something so outlandish? How can be you be so cool with this...." He motioned to his body, flinging the sheets off of his legs to bare their pale muscle dusted with coarse hair. "I don't understand how you could be so calm with a beast in your bed!" he finally barked with self loathing.

Billy sighed, his chin against his chest as he thought about how to explain himself with tact. There was nothing but to be as honest as he had been, an honesty it seemed Goodnight honored deeply. With a sigh, he looked up at the other man. "I don't know if you'll believe me or not."

Goody laughed bitterly. "I may or may not have become a wolf to tear free of a torturous facility where I may have left other wolves. I think I'm growing a mite accustomed to bizarre and untoward. By all means, continue. I want...." he shook his head. "I need to hear this. Who are you really?"

Billy closed his eyes tightly with a heavy sigh. "I was born nearly two hundred years ago in what is now South Korea, just a man like everyone else when I came to America to ensure my family a good home. We had a home, I had a career, we had a life. I had children," he whispered to the room, whispered over Goodnight's shoulder as he tried to recall their faces instead of the empty pain. When their faces refused to pass the years into his memory, he let it go. "I came home to find them slaughtered one night and before I could make a mistake and hunt down the monster, someone stopped me. He'd been hunting the monster that killed them all and was shocked to find a survivor. I joined him, and once the monster was slain, I stayed with him to learn all I could. It came at a price." Billy lowered the collar of his shirt, baring the scars that stood stark and vicious against his darker skin. 

Goodnight shook his head for a moment, fingers of one hand pressing into his temple as he looked down at his lap for concentration.. "Wait. Just hold on a moment here. You're telling me, you're two centuries old and... and you hunt people like... me?" His voice had gone meek and fearful as he glared up at Billy.

With a heavy sigh, Billy sank to the edge of the bed, hints of desperation clouding his face. "No, Goodnight. Not like you. You're something different, something..." Something special, his traitorous mind supplied. Instead, Billy took a deep, thoughtful breath. "You are unlike any were I've met before, Goodnight Robicheaux. I wonder that with proper teaching, you could master the beast, and lead it instead of it leading you."

Goody shook his head, the hint of a blush coloring his cheeks as he sheepishly looked down at his hands once more. "I ain't so special..."

With a heavy sigh, Billy stared off into the distance once more. "Are you aware of how many homeless and destitute have disappeared in the last year? They suspect Bogue of all of them, the terrifying Bogue-y man, he's called. Takes them all to that lab to disappear. And only one, ONE, managed to escape, Goody." The soldier looked up at him, mouth agape and pale cheeked once the depth of the situation had been bared to him. "That's right. Of all the people that went into that place, only YOU made it out alive. You're a soldier, a survivor, a fighter, and you're worth saving."

It was then that sharp sky blue eyes, stunned and speechless, met the endless ebony of Billy's eyes, the eyes of a hunter softened by something unnamed between them. In those eyes, he found something worth sitting straight for, something that beckoned to him to leave the bed and continue to fight for the souls still trapped inside of the facility. There were two men, brothers in arms, still there, and it was time to get them back. If he were being lead by a handsome man, that was neither here nor there.

"Then where you go, I go, Billy..."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slowly, things come together

_'Then where you go, I go...'_

  
Soft, familiar words, then a gun shot startled Sam Chisolm out of bed and he sat up abruptly, his heart hammering in his ears. His chest still heaved with breath, as if he'd been sprinting back in Academy, but this was no bad dream. His vision had lasted long enough that he'd learned how to recognise what was dreaming and what was Sight. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he peeked at the clock on his bedside table and sighed; a full two hours before it was scheduled to go off.

  
Well. Sleep was overrated anyways.

  
With a heavy sigh, he closed his eyes again and focused on the voice from his dream. The gun shot, he could identify, was a rifle round, the type snipers used in the field of battle. Then the voice, soft and lilting and so...

  
_Goodnight! _

Clearing his thoughts took little work, being consumed by the vision and the knowledge that somewhere, out there in New Orleans, his friend was safe. Years of hostage negotiation taught him to recognise a relaxed cadence in the voice; wherever he was, his friend was safe. If he could concentrate on that...  
Just there, beyond the voice in his head and the report of the sniper rifle, Goodnight's speciality in the military, he could see the ominous glow of a building in the distance, a building that everyone in the city knew and feared. There was a connection here, and it would take a good dose of caffiene to help jog the memories proper.

  
Where had Goodnight been that he couldn't have heard him before now? He'd searched the city with no success, grown adamant that Bogue took him, and yet, no evidence of any foul play. Nothing that could pin the disappearance to the monster in the citadel beyond the city lights. The man had simply disappeared, had bled into silence only to resurface in his dreams.

  
Tossing the tangled blankets aside, Sam grunted as he stood and he listened to the various cracks of abused joints and worn bones. It was only when he woke up did he feel his age, when the years of carelessness and service made themselves known. Retirement seemed so sweet in moments like this, but the inner paladin would never have let him leave the people of the city without his skills. He knew that his particular parish had never been so prosperous, that even the criminals commented on his fair and just manner. To think that even these poor victims of circumstance, along with the innocent, would suffer without him sent a vein of ice through his heart.

  
It was only when his body warmed through with his second cup of coffee did he realize what the Sight was trying to tell him; Goodnight had been involved with Bogue in some way, whether prisoner or patient, it was hard to say. The man was never confrontational, tailor made for the sniper position, and avoided face-to-face aggression at all costs. Sam had stayed awake with a drunken Goody as the man counted each enemy down as another year of his life stolen, another black mark against his soul. Goodnight should never have joined the military.

  
What were his options? Sam couldn't exactly patrol the area, nor could he radio for someone in that parish to patrol, hoping to catch a glimpse of his friend before something foolish happened. He had no jurisdiction over areas outside of town, and if something untoward happened, he had no rights to act in an official manner. If found there anyways, depending on circumstance, he could be reprimanded, given his well known distaste for Bogue, even fired if things went to Hell quick.

  
But what was a pension and a faux gold watch compared to his best friend? What was any life compared to a paltry check each month and a trinket?

  
He needed to plan. There was no way of knowing what his friend intended to do, but perhaps a stake out would catch him before something foolish, or even deadly, happened. That wasn't his parish, but perhaps he could prevent his friend from making a dire mistake.  
His mind made up, Sam made the call to his precinct. When his secretary answered, he sighed with the heavy finality of his actions. "Hey, Teddy, it's Sam. Yeah, I'm going to need a few personal days. Family thing. Uh-huh. Yeah, it's kinda urgent, so I'm going to be taking this day and the rest of the week. Yeah," he nodded, knowing full well that Teddy Q on the other end of the phone wouldn't be able to see. Force of habit, he decided as he refilled his coffee for the third time. "Yeah, I'm sorry. If anyone has an emergency, needs to see me for urgent reasons, call. Otherwise, just take messages and I'll tend to them when I get back.

* * *

The motorcycle cut through the town, a swift black shadow passing between cars and through traffic signals that glowed an eerie green in the night. Goodnight held on for dear life as Billy revved the engine, speeding them into the darkness of the country surrounding the town. The suburban areas eventually disappeared, replaced by towering cypress and live oaks with branches that crawled across the ground like earthbound eldritch monsters. The night grew heavy with the smell of decaying organic matter and the humidity only suppressed the darkness with each bayou they crossed, each one thicker and wider than the previous until mossy trees and marshes dominated the landscape.  
Goody's fingers were woven tightly across Billy's stomach, his head buried against the valley between the assassin's shoulders. It was once he had a moment to swallow his fear of the two-wheeled rocket beneath him, that he was able to open his eyes and see for himself through the helmet visor the beauty around him. As they sped east on the I-10, the thicker forest had given way to open waters, reflecting the massive moon and brilliant stars and lighting the moss-laden trees. The ethereal picture it painted stole the soldier's breath enough that he barely noticed Billy slowing down to take a driveway he'd have missed in broad daylight.

  
The driveway was nothing more than dirt piled high with concrete smeared around it to keep the dirt from washing away too badly, and was pitched sharply so that Billy had to take the road slow. This lead down to trail further into a thick thatch of moss-heavy trees and it wound through the small forest until Goodnight was sure he wouldn't be able to see the interstate were he to dismount now. Eventually, even the water disappeared behind the trees until they were left surrounded by ancient giants draped in wispy cloaks that danced in the moist breeze. Goody watched the undulating moss and it calmed him after his break-neck ride.

  
The motorcycle came to a stop before Goodnight had even noticed, and his head swiveled around to notice the rough hewn cabin, lit along the front porch and from within by candlelight and lanterns. Looking about him, he noticed the lack of power cables; the bayous were full of squatters and hermits who lived off of the grid. Still, there was something comforting about the home. He nearly missed the brightly polished red Honda Blackbird sitting to the side of the porch and would have if the small bonfire and the light from Billy's motorbike hadn't caught the paint.

  
Distracted. He was distracted. He couldn't tell if it had been the swift ride here, or the lulling vibrations of the bike, or the feel of shifting muscle beneath his tightly laced hands. It absolutely couldn't have been the sharp musk within the helmet where he'd spent the ride inhaling nothing but Billy, nor the bothersome arousal that pricked at the back of his mind. There tingled in his veins something dark and deep, something primal that seemed to wake the moon glowed bright and massive between the laden boughs. There was more important work to do, but as he pulled the helmet off and caught sight of the moon again, the animalistic urge within him yawned cavernously, waking and sluggish, and easy to quash beneath anxiety.

  
The assassin swung his leg forward over the handlebars and rose gracefully, leaving Goodnight dazed, staring skyward as he removed his helmet. Billy could see the beast-like glow in Goody's eyes and before he could catch the Cajun's attention, they heard a soft "Ahem..." from the cabin behind them.

  
"What have you brought here, old friend?" came the reedy voice, soft and reserved. The old man was cautious and on guard. The mountain of a man was nervous that Billy had brought someone new, someone potentially dangerous. The assassin spun around to look at the large man in the doorway of the cabin, his .370 Henry cradled in his arms. Billy had no doubt that there lay a silver bullet in the gun, only one. Jack Horne only kept one silver bullet, just in case.

  
The corners of Billy's lips slowly curled into a smile, but when Goodnight caught sight of the rifle, he couldn't stop the low whine that came from his throat. He could smell the canine on the other man, he knew what would be in that rifle, it's what he would carry himself. The piteous noise was enough to cause Jack to stiffen, his head cocked to the side to listen to the soldier's nervous breaths. He slowly lowered the gun to his side and then leaned it against the doorway, pressing the safety in place. "Well, well, Billy Rocks... You bring me a stray?"

  
Billy chuckled as he removed his riding gloved and shoved them into his own helmet. "We're already quite the batch of strays, don't you think?" he replied, making sure to keep himself between the old man who now approached, and the man still upon the motorbike. "I brought someone who..."

  
"Needs ol' Jack, right?" the old man finished, raising his hands in supplication as he approached Goodnight. "Now, let me see who we're dealing with." His movements were slow, knowing that now, he was approaching a frightened animal beneath the anxious man.

  
Goodnight swallowed thickly as the older man approached. His nose twitched with the scent of canine and wild and earth. His eyes were quick, watching every careful move other man made. When Jack held out his hand to shake, Goodnight took it with a trembling hand, but kept his facade in place, careful to stand strong and still against the fear trying to push to the surface. "Nice to meet you, son," said the older man, his white hair tussled in the night air. "I'm ol Jack, Jack Horne. Take it, ah... take it you're new to this?"

  
"This?" Goodnight managed to choke out in a breath.

  
"Your inner beast," the other man replied softly. "You nervous?" Goody nodded honestly. "Don't be. You're in safe hands. No one's gonna hurt you here." He caught the flash of blue eyes ringed in gold as they glanced at the rifle leaning against the wall and the man . "Now, don't you fret about that." The man's voice grew sad and heavy. "That bullet isn't meant for you..."

  
Goodnight looked up at the older man, really looked, and could see the lines of age and the wearing of time that had had it's way with him. Instead of fear, he felt sympathy, and no small amount of pity. Before Goody could make any comment, he whined deep in his throat, this time no sound of apprehension, and the old man smiled, jerking he head towards the cabin where Billy had disappeared earlier. "Now, don't you fret about me none. I ain't going anywhere soon, and I fear there will always be someone who needs ol Jack."

  
Goodnight smiled, even if it were a little melancholic, and nodded. Something within him called to him to bow his head, submit, and he ducked his head in greeting. "Goodnight's my name."

  
Jack's smile widened into something that bled into his eyes, a genuine glow that warmed Goody a little more than the engine he had sat upon, and together, they entered the cabin to find Billy and another man at the roughly built dinner table and chairs.

  
This man was dark complected what short hair he had cut short into a mohawk. He was lean built and dressed in a leather riding jacket zipped open to show off the vest and lean and chiseled body beneath. Corded arms held a previously rolled paper open over the table where Billy and he studied it. He cautiously made his way over to peer over the assassin's shoulder and realized that below them were blueprints, blueprints that made him shiver at the sight of the basement.

  
"What is this?" he asked darkly, suppressing the urge to growl at a damn piece of paper. There was nothing wrong with it, was there?

  
Billy's eyes snapped up at Goodnight's words. The ring of gold around those sharp blue eyes had grown to glow slightly in the man's panic. There was the wolf, just below and untamed, wild to the call of adrenaline and emotion. While Red's hand slid around to the buckknife on his belt, Billy took a step back, holding a hand in placation to the other hunter. He said no word, but his gestures and expressions spoke for him, that Red was not to hurt this man. The hunter's fingers slid from the handle of his knife and left it for the assassin to handle, glaring at the Cajun with suspicious eyes.

  
Jack slid between him and the table, and carefully wrapped his large hands around Goodnight's slender shoulders. "Let's go take a walk, you and I, and we'll discuss everything, yeah?"

  
Billy and Red both watched as Jack lead Goody out of the cabin. Billy knew he was in for Hell from the other hunter. "Do you understand what you've done wrong here?" the Apache man growled. "We let Jack live and that's enough. And now this one?"

  
Billy sighed heavily as he turned back to the blueprints of Bogue Industries, ducking his head low over the outline of the lower floors and laboratories. "There's something different. And he could help us with this."

  
"You're making up excuses for him," Red huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the chair he sat in as he fixed the other man with a heated glare. "I taught you better than that. They're all animals."

  
How could he know, Billy wondered, when he hadn't felt the man's presence, when he hadn't looked into the old soldier's eyes and saw the fear and intelligence behind that ethereal animal glow. The idea that they were just animals angered him, and angered him each time he was faced with a wolven kill and saw the relief and thankfulness bleed out of their face as they died. How could the man say that, when he himself had spared the old wolf Jack Horne. He shook his head. "That's a bit hypocritical coming from you. Who's walking with Goodnight now, but your own spared kill?"

  
Red's posture straightened. "Jack was useful. Still is."

  
Billy's fists tightened at his sides. "And you've no idea what Goodnight can do. He's far more than a beast. I'm just here to ensure his chance to prove himself."

  
The muscles in Red's jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth, his eyes burning bright with a silent rage that warned of a future confrontation, should the issue be pressed. Jack Horne was a tender spot. "Fine. You want a regret or two? Want a chance for it to come back and bite you? How long have you known him?" he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the door. "Do you know him at all? Or were you presented with a convincing facade, Billy Rocks? I'll let you have your toy. The moment he steps out of line, I'll be there. It'll be the last time you see me."

  
Billy's teeth ground together, his brows drawn together in anger. In truth, when he'd looked into Goodnight's eyes, he'd felt like he'd known the man for far longer than a day, far longer than a lifetime. The man beyond the wolf was a beautiful disaster that he felt unable to part with despite their short acquantence. The danger lay not in knowing and keeping the wolf, but in letting his sluggishly beating heart become ensnared by a pair of gun-calloused hands. With one more tense glance at the blueprints on the table below, Billy turned on his heel and stalked out into the darkness beyond the cabin's lantern glow to burn off his anger.

  
*************

  
Goodnight watched as Billy disappeared into the cabin, leaving him alone with the older man, this figure that instantly felt... familiar. He couldn't stop the trickle of warmth that flowed through him at the thought of the paternal figure that now approached him slowly and introduced himself. The man, Jack, must have seen how the fear clouded his features once Billy had disappeared with the other hunter.  
Another hunter.

  
"Shh, son. He ain't gonna hurt you," the older man cooed, shaking his head and holding up his hands in supplication. "Neither am I."

  
Goodnight's focus shifted from watching Billy back to the older man. His nose twitched with the scent of warmed fur, nights of running free and wild, freedom from fear and regret. Realization struck him quick like lightning. "You're..."

  
Jack chuckled softly. "Yes, yes. Me too. Just an old one."

  
Goodnight's brows narrowed in suspicious curiosity. "And they let you... live?" he asked slowly, cautiously. "They're hunters. Why didn't they..." He motioned aimlessly with his hands, not wanting to say the words. A part of him feared the idea that his usefulness might run out and the hunter may dispose of him. Another part of him welcomed the idea of a silver bullet, an end to his uncertain and painful future.

  
Jack's features warmed then as he worried over the words, contemplated what to say. "The Lord works in mysterious ways. By the time ol' Red found me, I'd learned how to control myself through my faith. I'd done my share of damage, but that was years before he found me. Many years before I turned to the Good Word." Now the old wolf did sound tired, as if the years had come back to haunt him and weigh down those wide, once powerful shoulders. "I reckon that's why Billy brought you here," he said softly. "To help you learn what triggers it and to help you master it, God willing."

  
Goodnight shook his head slowly as he focused out into the murky distance over Jack's shoulder. "It's been long since I've had any faith," he murmured dejectedly.

  
With that, Jack did huff a laugh, and it sounded like an amused bark. "Friend, faith doesn't have to be just in the Lord. You can have faith in many things. Have faith that we'll get to the bottom of this. Have faith that we have two amazing hunters on our side. Have faith in the one that chose to save you."

  
Goodnight glared at him then, in both frustration and confusion. "But... WHY did he spare me?" he hissed through his teeth. "What's special about me that he didn't put me outta my misery?"

  
Jack smiled a paternal smile and shook his head, gently landing one of his massive hands to cup the other man's shoulder. "Only he can answer that. One day, you two will talk and what the Lord has planned for you will come out all the clearer once you find your place." Looking over his shoulder at the cabin, he could see the play of shadows within where the two hunters talked, and then he turned back to Goodnight. "Personally, I think your place has become clear now with us. We just have a little more business before our motley pack takes you in."

  
"Pack?" Goodnight asked, confused.

  
"Weeeelll," Jack stretched the word out, scratching the back of his head. "Figured we might be getting more wayward wolven souls on our hands, if the Lord sends me a pack, who am I to deny Him?"

  
Goodnight shook his head at the older man. His faith and calm, kind demeanor seemed too gentle to be believable. "What souls?" he asked cautiously.

  
The other man smiled, clasping a giant hand against Goody's shoulder again. "There are still men inside that facility, son. We'd be doing the Lord's work razing that place to the ground, but those innocents will need someone to help them, and if they're anything like you, they could use some old wolf to keep them in line, right?"  
Goodnight's stomach sank and his face blanched in the cool November air, and it sounded like a gunshot in his ear, loud enough to make him flinch. Jack's nose twitched as the scent in the breeze turned sour with distress and an airy whine escaped his throat. "Breathe, my boy, you gotta breathe through this," he murmured softly. "This is what I'm talking about, calm it, control it. Not everyone can put it so easily in God's hands. That's what ol' Jack is here for..."

  
Goody clenched his eyes shut and shook his head fiercely from side to side, trying to calm the sounds echoing in his head. The memories bounced around, and he sucked in a deep, sharp breath trying to still the noise.

  
"Breathe, son..."

  
'_What're ya doing, Robicheaux?? No man left behind! For fuck's sake, go back!'_ cried the voices in his head, and his teeth ground together as the words sang. He could see the other two in their cells, malnourished, in pain. Blood flashed across their faces, the memories of one life superimposed upon another. The other two, there was never blood. Bogue had taken care to keep them clean. _'No man left behind, do you hear me?_' screamed the echos in his brain. "I can't..." he gasped, his head falling forward as Jack wrapped his other hand around Goody's other shoulder.

  
"No, it's alright. You're doing it. Keep breathing, slowly," the massive man encouraged. He could smell the scent of distress deteriorating, but the trembles that shook the other man rattled through his arm. "Listen to my voice," he whispered. "You got this, son. You got it."

  
Goody sucked in a breath, held it, and then let it out slowly. This he did three times, and on the third, both men realized that the tremors had diminished. Jack ran his hand up and down Goodnight's shoulder, soothing away the rest of the shaking until Goody stood there, tired worn. Slowly, he opened his eyes and raised his heavy head to look up at Jack and the beaming smile that stretched across that old, wisened face.

  
Before him no longer was a strange old man, but a wise old wolf, paternal in his instinct to protect and shield from danger. The scent in the air had changed from something hurtful and afraid to comforting and soft. He could see the brilliance now in Billy bringing him here instead of simply killing him. "There, now," Jack urged softly. "You gonna be alright?" And Goody nodded, surprised to find that he really would be. "See?" Jack said with a smile. "You've taken your first step. Calmed yourself out of a situation there."

  
A noise on the porch gained their attention and they looked up to see Billy stalked angrily out into the night beyond the circle of light provided by candles and lanterns. Goody tried to turn to follow after him when the hand on his shoulder tightened. "Best to leave him be, boy. It'll take a few, but he'll calm down," the older man said as he, too, watched Billy leave. "He can see where he's going. No gator's gonna get him." Turning back to Goodnight, he smiled, a prideful, beaming grin. "And you just took your first step to controlling your inner beast. Next, learning how to call on it," he said as he turned to motion back towards the porch. "Come on in for some coffee. We've got a long night ahead of us..."

Jack turned to disappear into the cabin, leaving Goodnight to watch between the old wolf and the hunter. The wolf had much to teach him, this was true, but the man that had saved him had faded into the night beyond the lantern light, raging, hurting. Goodnight could not help but fear the dhampyr's temper; he could smell it in the air. But the man had come to his aid in a time of need, and feeling at fault for the hunter's current situation, his feet began to move into the darkness. He supposed that he should be shocked that his eyes adjusted to the night quickly, leaving him able to see his surroundings well. His nostrils flaired as he caught the scent of the other man, and he cautiously began to follow.


End file.
